


A Duty Most Solemn

by JacquelineHyde



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-16 00:11:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1324501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JacquelineHyde/pseuds/JacquelineHyde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You know, if you would not leave the window open every night, you might not be roused so often from sleep to see to your half-frozen wife.”</p><p>Ned can only wonder why Cat thinks he would consider this a deterrent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Duty Most Solemn

**Author's Note:**

> For the ASOIAF kink meme prompt, _As a proper husband, it's his duty to keep his Southron wife warm._

It is the dead of night when Ned wakes to the sensation of a soft, warm shape pressed against his back.  
  
He pulls away slightly to look back over his shoulder, and smiles as Cat murmurs a sleepy protest, her arm tightening around his waist.  
  
 _My lady must feel the cold bitterly tonight,_  he thinks, squeezing her hand and holding her arm in place; and little surprise, for window is still open. He went and flung it wide after he had her earlier this night – or rather, he thinks with a weary grin, after she had him, for his wife seemed in no mood to wait patiently until he reached for her, shoving him to his back nearly the second he climbed into bed and climbing atop him.   
  
 _If you insist upon leaving the window open, I do hope you intend to stay to keep me from freezing solid,_  she had called sleepily from somewhere within a nest of furs and quilts, though her skin had been flushed and hot against his only moments previous.   
  
And though he had no intention whatsoever of doing anything else, he pulled a long-suffering expression and heaved a great sigh, as though lying in a comfortable bed, with the woman he loves wrapped around him, was a terrible hardship. It has long been their private joke that Catelyn only comes to him to be held, that he only relents and takes her into his arms, when she requires his warmth to combat the cold – which, given her southron blood, is near always.  
  
Ned turns carefully in her arms to face her, for he likes to watch her sometimes as she sleeps, her face free from the cares of the day, responding openly to whatever it is that she sees in her dreams.  
  
When he brushes absent circles over her shoulder and finds her skin cool to the touch, he frowns, and despite the sweat beading at his brow and trickling uncomfortably down his back where they had been pressed together, eases from her embrace, and rises to go and shut the window.  
  
As he climbs back into her bed and wraps his arms around the bundle of blankets that presumably still contains his wife, he thinks with brief chuckle that she will hardly require him to hold her, now that the window is shut.  
  
It it merely a joke between them now, but early in their marriage, Ned took it  _very_  seriously, the duty he had taken upon himself to see her kept comfortably warm, after the first time he found her sucking a droplet of blood from her finger, so wracked with shivers that she could barely grasp her embroidery needle, let alone use it without injury, but too proud to do more than move closer to the fire.  
  
To his mind, it was he that took her from the ungodly damp, muggy heat of Riverrun to bring her here; it was only right that he should see to keeping her warm. In those days, when she had nothing for him but icy courtesy and he wondered if she ever would, he thought grimly that if he could not make her happy, he might at least make her comfortable  
  
At first, this meant ensuring that she had numerous furs either heaped on her bed or wrapped snugly around her, and calling for hot spiced wine in the evenings when he noticed the tips of her pale fingers acquiring a bluish tinge, but it was not long before he began to discover a much more effective, and much more pleasant, way to keep his beautiful southron lady safe from the cold.  
  
With winter growing rapidly more severe, the nights must have felt bitter cold to her indeed, for often as he dressed after they had finished, he would catch sight of her shivering out of the corner of his eye, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world on these nights to undress again, slide back into bed, and pull her into his arms until she slept.  
  
It must have felt natural to her too, for she would melt into his embrace with a sigh of contentment, stiffening in surprise for only an instant, and even that, only the first time.  
  
Each time, his interpretation of what constituted  _violent_  shivering grew looser and looser, and on more than one occasion, he is quite certain that she merely yawned and stretched before he climbed back into bed to warm her.   
  
Each time, he made excuses to himself to stay a little longer –  _she is not warm yet, I will wait until she sleeps more deeply that I do not wake her when I leave_  – until one night, he woke with a start, disoriented by the entirely unfamiliar feeling of waking with another. He smiled to find her attempting to wriggle up under his arm and into his embrace, clumsy in sleep, but although he could not quite convince himself of the urgency of leaving altogether before she woke, he wondered uneasily if she would be altogether pleased to wake in his arms just yet.  
  
Carefully, he had disentangled himself from her and scooted away to let her sleep, only to wake again to find her once more nestled close, arm tight around his waist. Again and again, he slid carefully away, and again and again woke in her arms, traversing the entire span of the bed in this manner, until by morning, they teetered dangerously at the edge, tangled together.  
  
When Catelyn had woken, half on top of him and clinging tightly, she had moved to pull away, a flustered apology on her lips, but he had tightened his hold, anchored her to him until she relaxed against him again.  
  
As he recalls, they both made a late start that day.  
  
But if Ned has used her dislike of the cold as an excuse to hold her, he is hardly alone in that.   
  
On the occasion of their rare quarrels, he would often wake to the gentle dip of the mattress as she slid into his bed.  
  
 _I am still angry with you,_  Catelyn would inform him matter-of-factly, and he would agree coolly that he was still angry as well.   
  
 _It is very cold this night,_  she would further explain, and rather than ask why she would abandon her rooms, the warmest in the castle, for his far cooler ones, he would simply order her to  _come closer, then._  
  
Perhaps he truly has his wife's southron blood to thank for the generally peaceful state of his marriage, or perhaps it is merely that coldness between them troubles her as much as the cold of winter. Either way, she has always seemed to have difficulty holding onto anger while tucked against his shoulder, his hands running over her arms and up and down her back to work some warmth back into her skin.   
  
And he, he has always found it, will always find it, damned near impossible to even recall what she has done to anger him in the first place when she is half naked (for efficiency's sake, of course – the heat from his own body can hardly reach her through layers and layers of clothing), soft curves pressed close against him, long legs tangling with his, hair spilling over both of them.  
  
It was while she carried Sansa that the pretense became a joke between them – or at least, the first time he can recall her teasing him over it.  
  
She was just beginning to experience the desperate, near-constant need to lie together that he has only grown more enthusiastically fond of with each child she has carried, however she may blush at his knowing look to hear her breathing grow quicker and see her eyes a little glassy with want, however she may assure him that they needn't if he doesn't want to – a scenario which has yet to happen, and yet she always asks.  
  
At the time, it had caught him off-guard, left him stunned and winded and too exhausted to do more afterwards than kiss her forehead, flop to his back, and close his eyes, strangely unable to stop grinning.   
  
 _What a fine husband you are,_  Cat had murmured with a shy grin when he had woken to find her watching him intently, for it was still not altogether common for him to remain with her the entire night,  _staying near to keep me warm._  
  
Ned smiles to recall what had followed, his wife's altogether irresistible method of thanking him for caring for her so well, and coughs sheepishly as he feels himself begin to harden against her bottom. A little embarrassed to be so easily stirred by so little where this woman is concerned, he wills it away, but as long as images of those nights remain in his mind, images of this night, of all the other nights that she has been especially insistent in her desire for him, there is little hope that it will subside any time soon. It is hardly helpful, that each time she shifts against him, he must grit his teeth against the urge to coax her gently awake.  
  
Another night, he would not resist, because he loves her when she wakes wanting him, her body arching up to seek his before she has entirely shaken the cobwebs of sleep from her mind, and she always seems pleased to find that he has wanted her too badly to wait for her to wake on her own. But he finds that he would prefer to watch her sleep peacefully, and so tonight, he is content to pull her closer back against him and savour the slow, sweet burn of desire for the woman in his arms.   
  
At least, he is content to simply hold her, until it becomes obvious that she is moving against him a little too deliberately, a little too consciously of what he most enjoys, to be still asleep.  
  
Nuzzling through her hair until his lips find the soft skin of her shoulder, he grasps her hip and pulls her more firmly back against him. Her breathing hitches slightly, and then she is twisting in his arms to kiss him, gasping into his mouth as he slides his hand from her hip to rub between her legs through her shift and smallclothes.  
  
Each time she moves against his hand, it brings her bottom into further delicious contact with the arousal that he is becoming less and less willing to enjoy passively, and as the sensation mounts swiftly from sweet to almost unbearably so, he rolls her to her back and moves over her.  
  
“Good evening, husband,” Catelyn greets, and her voice, throaty with sleep and the stirrings of desire, shoots straight through him.  
  
“Wife,” Ned returns, brushing a few mussed strands of hair from her eyes.   
  
Her hands find his shoulders and knead gently.  
  
“You know, if you would not leave the window open every night, you might not be roused so often from sleep to see to your half-frozen wife.”  
  
“Perhaps I enjoy seeing to my wife. Perhaps that is why I leave the window open each night.”  
  
“Then by all means, my love, warm me,” she invites, tugging him closer.  
  
Eagerly, he moves to do so, for is it not his solemn duty? He leans in close, evading her attempt to pull his head down for a kiss, chuckles at her noise of annoyance, and instead cups his hands around the curve of her neck and shoulder and breaths warm air into them.  
  
Cat shivers, but he does not think it is with cold, and when he does it again, cups his hands over her ear and exhales gently, he does not think that the way she tries to squirm closer, legs spreading to cradle him, has much to do with cold either.  
  
Ned pulls away with some reluctance, and together they struggle from their clothing. Before the last of their garments can find the floor, she pulls him back down with her, and he acquiesces easily, his mouth finding hers as his hands roam over her body.  
  
Here and there, he stops to rub vigorously, as though attempting to banish a particularly persistent chill. She laughs, although it takes on a breathless quality, and she stops trying to swat his hand away, when he moves to her thigh, deliberately brushing lightly against her sex as he rubs back and forth. By the time he moves down her body to kiss her there, she is very warm indeed, slick and hot and so sweet that his head grows light and unsteady.  
  
Her fingers knot in his hair, as her other hand finds his shoulder, and he cannot help the laugh that gusts over her folds – nor the surge of pleasure at the moan it draws from her – as she tries to push him closer with one hand, and pull him back up to her with the other. His body is urging him to heed the latter, and with a gentle nip to the inside of her thigh, he kisses a wet trail over her belly and up between her breasts, savouring the warmth and softness of her skin, but with no thought of resisting when she tugs him insistently to lie over her again. Her hands land at his buttocks and press him closer, and he grinds teasingly against her until, with a short, low growl that makes him throb in response, she grips his cock tightly and guides him into her.  
  
He is determined to hear that noise from her again, and purposely keeps his strokes short and shallow, even as she moans her disapproval and tries to clutch him tighter. It seems that he can never have enough of his Cat losing control of herself, taking control of their lovemaking, and he is neither surprised nor dismayed nor anything but smugly satisfied when, for a second time this evening, she shoves him to his back and moves to climb atop him. He takes her hips and half lifts her the rest of the way, and his own hips buck almost involuntarily at the feel of her, wet and hot against his aching hardness. They moan together as he slides into her, and his hands fall at her legs, rubbing absently up and down her calves as she moves over him.   
  
The sweetness of it is nearly too much, and it is not long before he must reach for her hips, coax her to slow her movements that he may catch his breath and gather his control but she swats his hands away and quickens her pace until he cannot think, can barely breathe, can only fist his hands in the sheets as he spills inside her with a groan.  
  
Cat leans down to slide her fingers through his hair, dust light kisses over his lips. When he pulls her closer, deepens the kiss, she whimpers softly in the back of her throat, rubs instinctively against him. Gently, he pushes her to sit upright again, and touches where he is softening inside her, slides his fingers through the slickness of her arousal and his release, and rubs quick, light circles over her clit until her thighs grip him tightly and her head falls back with a cry.  
  
He can feel his cock twitch at the sight of her, the sound of her cries, the way she shudders hotly against him, but there is no urge is so strong right now as the one to gather her into his arms and kiss her forehead as she calms. She hums contentedly into his chest, and then, reluctantly, rolls off of him to nestle at his side, and he thinks that nothing could induce him to move from this spot before morning.  
  
That is, until a trickle of sweat rolls down his back, and the heat begins to itch at him uncomfortably.  
  
Once her breathing has become deep and even, he gently disentangles himself from her arms and climbs from the bed.  
  
“Are you going to open the window again?” she asks, groggy and disbelieving.  
  
Turning from the window, Ned grins over his shoulder.  
  
“If you continue to reward me for it, my lady, you must not be surprised when I continue to do so.”


End file.
